Title: Blood Bond
Author: Jacki Bentley
Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
Date: December, 2006
Format: E-book, 53 pages
ISBN-10: 1-58608-997-8

Jacki Bentley's Blood Bond is quite simply fifty-three pages of hot.

Bored with the centuries, vampire Thyre du Belvoir lives a quiet life, hidden away in a modernized mausoleum. He does his best to help the local earth-bound spirits, but otherwise he spends his nights alone. It has been years since he last sought out his own kind.

When vampire Julia Wergeles explodes out of the darkness one fateful autumn night, Thyre is instantly drawn to her through an ancient, powerful connection he can not explain. Now they must learn to trust each other if they are to survive the terrible evil that pursues them... and unravel the tantalizing mystery of the Blood Bond.

Despite its slim profile, Blood Bond is jam-packed with action, suspense, and some of the hottest love scenes I've ever read. The heroine is a modern dynamo, more than capable of standing up for herself. The hero is a legend in his own right, reluctant to take orders from anyone, but beguilingly smitten with his new lady love.

Rather than submitting to the classic "fight for dominance" cliché, Jacki Bentley weaves a tale of two smart, independent creatures who want to come together, who want to love one another—a direction I found marvelously refreshing.

But don't be fooled. The tension between these two is electrifying, and the sex scenes explode with desire. The unadulterated eroticism of Blood Bond puts both timidity and power plays to shame.

Ladies, make sure you have a solid hour or two before you start this one because you won't want to put it down. And gentlemen, I'm going to let you in on a secret: this novella is better than chocolate. At a modest $3.50 you won't find a more effective aphrodisiac.

Load it on her e-book reader and leave it on the bedside table. Better yet, read it out loud to her. Trust me, you'll love what happens next.

Read an excerpt at New Concepts Publishing.

Title: Hal Spacejock: Second Course
Author: Simon Haynes
Publisher: Fremantle Arts Center
Date: March, 2006
Format: Paperback, 365 pages
ISBN-10: 1921064668
ISBN-13: 978-1921064661

Book two in the Hal Spacejock series by Simon Haynes is as good as the first. Maybe better.

I know what you're thinking: "No way! Even better?"

Indeed. As much as I loved the first book, I couldn't help but notice its complete lack of carnivorous apes. I mean really, what's a sci-fi pulp-fiction spoof romp without a hulking, hairy, orange, carnivorous ape?

And what about the hyper-cheerful, Douglas-Adams-esque laptop? Or the lecherous evil gadget genius? Not to mention the "down on her luck, tough as nails but sweet on the inside" girl...

Apparently, Haynes was just saving them for book two. It's like he read my mind.

In Hal Spacejock: Second Course, Hal's luck is finally taking a turn for the better. He's picked up a bona fide job with an actual paying client. If he can bring the cargo in on time, a whole new world of opportunity will open up to the crew of the Volante.

But serious jobs come with serious enemies, and the CEO of cargo competitor Curtis Freightlines is out to sabotage the delivery.

Enter the tough but desperate Sonya Polarov, less than twenty-four hours away from being deported from Union space. CEO Rex Curtis promises to protect her from her immigration problems if she can delay team Spacejock by just a few precious hours.

The job sounds simple enough, but Sonya isn't counting on carnivorous apes, or cheerfully obsequious laptop computers, or the indomitable Clunk—Hal's sidekick robot with enough brains for two and an unflagging loyalty that would put even Lassie to shame.

Get ready for one hilarious ride as Spacejock applies his own special flare to the task at hand: deliver the cargo and win the girl, by any means necessary.

Hal Spacejock: Second Course and the rest of the Hal Spacejock series is readily available throughout Australia and can be purchased in the U.S. at Powells Books.

What I Learned from Sandy Lender's Choices Meant for Gods:

1. Not all gods are all powerful, even if they do strut around like they're "all that."


2. Interesting birthmarks are always a sign of trouble.


3. If you're going to keep a wizard around for protection, you should really try to hang on to him.


4. If you can't hang on to your wizard, it's a good idea to keep a god or two around for back-up.


5. Just in case you end up completely on your own now and then, you should probably learn a thing or two about magic yourself.


6. But you can't always depend on magic, so having a sword on hand—or at least a dagger—wouldn't hurt either.


7. In fact, if you live in a world full of gods and magic and such, it might be best never to leave the house.


8. Never attend to an errand yourself when you can send a servant to do it. Servants hardly ever get attacked by demons.


9. If you do have to go out yourself, be sure to bring a really fast horse.


10. And the most important thing I learned from Choices Meant for Gods: despite all the demons, warlords, and evil goddesses in the world, sometimes it's worth it to go out anyway. You'll never save the world (or meet anyone worth dating) if you don't take a risk once in a while.

First of all, I have to thank a whole bunch of people for a banner day here at Mind Unbound. Our newsletter picked up twenty-six subscribers in a single day yesterday, setting a new record. Many thanks to all our new readers and a very special thanks to author Elizabeth Bear for publicizing the site, not to mention for sending me a review copy of Undertow in the first place. Not only has the book set a record day around here, it's a terrific read!

Today also happens to be the first of the month, which means it's time again for Rapid Fire Learning in the JJL network. This month, as a special thanks to Elizabeth Bear and her fans, I'd like to start with just a few of the things I learned from reading Undertow (no spoilers, I promise):

1. Never get on the wrong side of a conjurer. They're bad news. You never realize how much you rely on luck until someone starts messing with it.


2. Never trust an interplanetary trading monopoly to "do the right thing" when profits are on the line.


3. Frog people are awesome.


4. A better environment starts at home. Don't go traipsing off to other people's planets until you can take care of your own.


5. Colonialism has always been, and will always be, a bad idea.


6. Quantum physics is even weirder than I thought.


7. Wave runners are the vehicles of the future. Who knew?


8. And the sweetest thing I learned from Elizabeth Bear's Undertow: Someday, math is going to be insanely cool. I'm just a few centuries before my time, that's all...

I just finished the first book in the Hal Spacejock series by Simon Haynes, and I couldn't possibly count the number of times I laughed out loud.

I do know it started with the very first page. To set the scene, our hero, Hal Spacejock himself, is playing chess against his spaceship's navigational computer:

'Your turn,' said the Navcom, in a neutral female voice.

'I'm thinking.'

'While you're planning your opening move, can I tell you about a special offer?'

'What kind of offer?' asked Hal suspiciously.

'Planet Books have a chess title on sale.'

[...]

'Chess for the intellectually challenged?' said Hal, staring at the cover in disbelief. 'Is this some kind of joke?'

'It's part of a popular series,' said the Navcom.

'What are the others? Interstellar navigation for nutters? Moon landings for morons?'

'Shall I add those titles to your basket?'

This book had me roaring. From the first page to the last, Hal Spacejock is a comically lovable idiot -- the dubious hero with a heart of gold buried under a whole cargo load of impatience, underhandedness, laughably questionable habits and an indomitable devil-may-care attitude. His faithful sidekick robot, Clunk -- with enough common sense for two and a healthy dose of good guy morality -- saves Hal's foolish hide at every turn and steals the show on every glorious page.

Add in a smart-mouth shipboard computer, a debt collector with a burly robot henchman, and two competing industrial tycoons who would do just about anything to get their hands on a shipment of robot parts, and you have the perfect recipe for one wild and uproarious ride across the galaxy and back again.

It's readily available in bookstores throughout Australia, and also currently available at Powells Books in the US. Happy reading!

Before you read this review, I make you this promise: I will not in any way reveal the plot beyond the first eight pages of Volume I. So feel free to read this post all the way through; I won't spoil a thing. If you want to know more before you buy the first book, click on either book cover to visit Amazon.com and read sample chapters.

-----------------------------------------

The Sundering / Jacqueline Carey / Tor Books

Volume I: Banewreaker
431 pages; ISBN: 9780765305213 (hardcover)
512 pages; ISBN: 9780765344298 (paperback)

Volume II: Godslayer
349 pages; ISBN: 9780765312396 (hardcover)
404 pages; ISBN: 9780765350985 (paperback)

What if the battle between good and evil were not as simple as it appears?

In Jacqueline Carey's magnificent two-volume series, The Sundering, the reader is forced to wonder. There are two sides to every story, after all, and even the bad guys can have the best of intentions...

The world of Urulat was created by the death of the one World God, who died in giving life to the seven gods of creation. This is the original sundering. From the one sprang forth the many. But with the separate powers of creation came also the power to disagree.

When the first-born creator, Haomane (God of Thought), tries to force our hero, Satoris (God of the Quickening a.k.a. sexual reproduction), to remove his Gift from the race of humanity, Satoris refuses to comply with his brother's demand, and for good reason. Humanity is the only race in which Thought is coupled with Life. To remove the Quickening from humanity would be to forever separate the one from the other, with potentially dire consequences.

Angered by this show of disobedience, and failing to understand his brother's reasoning, Haomane sunders the world, both literally and figuratively, splitting the land of the gods off from the rest of the continent so that the people are left alone, separated from the divine. Only Satoris remains.

But here's the kicker: Haomane blames the sundering on Satoris. According to Haomane's appointed prophets, only when Satoris is defeated will the lands of Urulat be made whole once more, and the people finally reunited with their gods. Thus does the war, and our story, begin.

The novels are beautifully written, complete with profoundly moving characters and a two-shot-latte-addictive plot that will keep you turning page after page even when you should have gone to bed hours ago.

(My boyfriend looked at the cover of Banewreaker and said it didn't look like something he would enjoy. "Not enough action," he said. I admit I pushed him—cajoled, entreated, begged—until he opened the book to a random page. Then he flipped to another... and another... "Okay," he said. "It's good." Was I right about the action? "On every page," he said. "Are you happy now?" Yes. Very.)

But even beyond this, these books are filled with meaning, raising questions that will tug at you long after you've finished the books.

These two novels are rich with the subtle yet persistent exploration of our own human sundering—the ways in which we try to separate our rationality from our animal instincts, for example, or to separate the divine from our "lowly," mundane existence. But each separation is the beginning of opposition, the beginning of good and evil. What would life be like if we understood ourselves to be whole beings, at once both rational and physical, both earthly and divine?

Modern science is discovering that our rationality is, in fact, inextricably linked to our animal urges, and that our physical bodies also seem to be linked to a higher power we have yet to understand. But where science is still unwilling to tread, these books pick up the torch, moving beyond "Is it true?" to ask the more startling, and more enlightening question: "What does this mean to our most fundamental assumptions—about the world around us, and about the very nature of humanity?"

Even if you have never before read a "fantasy" novel, these books are not to be missed. Pick up a copy of Banewreaker, Volume I of The Sundering, and read the first page or two. You won't be able to put it down. (My mother had never read a fantasy novel before I told her about this series, and from the very first page she couldn't put them down either.)

This isn't mere "genre fiction"; this is the very height of literature: gripping characters, provocative questions, and pulse-pounding entertainment all combined into a gripping read you won't soon forget. It just doesn't get better than this.

As Covenant approached, he was struck by how dispossessed the old man looked. Beggars and fanatics, holy men, prophets of the apocalypse did not belong on that street in that sunlight; the frowning, belittling eyes of the stone columns held no tolerance for such preterite exaltation. And the scant coins he had collected were not enough for even one meal. The sight gave Covenant an odd pang of compassion. Almost in spite of himself, he stopped in front of the old man.

--From Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 1), by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Geoff Ryman published a story entitled "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" in the October/November issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. As far as I'm concerned, it is one of the most powerful short stories ever written. Set in Cambodia, it is a magnificent tale of the past and of the future, of hope and fear and redemption, and of the tremendous potential to be discovered within even the smallest human heart.

No longer on the shelves, the October/November issue of the magazine can still be ordered in print, or it can be purchased as an e-book from fictionwise, as a palm e-book from ereader.com, or as an audio file from audible.com. I'll be adding Mr. Ryman's most recent novel, The King's Last Song--also set in Cambodia--to my Christmas list. When I manage to get my hands on a copy, I'll be sure to let you know how it is.

Subscriptions: Fantasy & Science Fiction

apocryphal adj. 1.Of questionable authorship or authenticity. 2. Erroneous; fictitious. 3. Apocryphal Bible Of the Apocrypha.--apocryphally adv.

--The American Heritage dic-tion-ar-y, Fourth Edition

No reader's journal could possibly be complete without an overwhelming abundance of quotes from Alexander McCall Smith, author of the wildly popular The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

It would be utter lunacy to include every one of my favorite McCall Smith quotes here in The Eclectic Reader, not to mention that the sheer volume of the writing would constitute an egregious violation of copyright law, as virtually every line of every McCall Smith novel is eminently quotable. I shall therefore do my best to limit myself to a few quotes that happen to include GRE-level vocabulary, starting with this one:

'Accounts of attacks by black mambas are often exaggerated, and stories of the snakes' attacking men on galloping horses, and overtaking them, are almost certainly apocryphal. The mamba can manage a consderable speed over a very short distance, but could not compete with a horse.'

--Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, purportedly quoting The Snakes of Southern Africa

"By the end of the evening, Horseman was flying. His manner became imperious; he played to the hilt the part of an English butler and announced new arrivals as though shouting over hundreds of people. He was magnificent."

--Monty Roberts, The Man Who Listens to Horses

I really love Yann Martel's writing. My reader's journal racked up quite a few entries from his Life of Pi. Mr. Martel commands a formidable vocabulary, and he uses it well--which is to say sparingly, but to great effect.

Far too many of the "great" literati use their vocabulary more as an ego boost than an art form, but Martel's writing encompasses a highly effective blend of the esoteric and the mundane, making his work oh so delightfully readable. Take a look at this beautifully descriptive passage from page one:

I had the great luck one summer of studying the three-toed sloth in situ in the equatorial jungles of Brazil. It is a highly intriguing creature. Its only real habit is indolence. ... The sloth is at its busiest at sunset, using the word busy here in the most relaxed sense. It moves along the bough of a tree in its characteristic upside-down position at the speed of roughly 400 metres an hour. On the ground, it crawls to its next tree at the rate of 250 metres an hour, when motivated, which is 440 times slower than a motivated cheetah. Unmotivated, it covers four to five metres in an hour.

I love this passage not only for its obvious descriptive talent but also for its ability to tell the reader so much about the narrator while ostensibly talking about sloths. There's so much personality packed into less than half a page.

I feel obliged to mention the fact that the book is not for the squeamish. I have no interest in divulging the plot, so enough said. But if you're interested in some wonderful writing (and a fascinating story), pick up Life of Pi and read the first few pages. I was hooked in two paragraphs.

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

--Yann Martel, Life of Pi, at 28 [Harcourt, 2001, first U.S. edition].

For some years now, I've been in the habit of keeping a "reader's journal." I like to write down my favorite passages from whatever I'm currently reading, including any vocabulary and/or word usage that particularly appeals to me.

I don't do this for every book I read, and I must admit that I have several books in my "backlog"--my favorite passages are marked with sticky notes but they haven't yet been transferred to the journal. Still, I find that it's a worthwhile habit. I like to go back from time to time and read over my old favorites.

I'm introducing the "eclectic reader" category within the Cobblestone Cafe in order to share some of my favorite passages and also to provide some gratuitous promotion to authors whose books I have profoundly enjoyed. So if you're looking for a good read, check out the eclectic reader for my personal recommendations.

Happy reading!